Exporting wav tracks in-place for DAW?

[aljenimago]

I agree with horisonten‘s objection. Dcramer, your idea works certainly fine in some scenarios, e.g. if recording a band performance or alike. For overdub recordings, which multitrackers have also always been made for, it is not the solution I am expecting. Even every cassette multitracker from the 1980s allowed to punch some sounds or bars somewhere in the timeline. So does every hardware multitrack recorder till today, expect the bluebox. I cannot understand what’s so rocket science like about implementing such a rudimentary feature.

[aljenimago]

Hello Midipoet, your math looks like a good solution. I will try it as soon as possible. Thank you very much!

[horisonten]

And what about if you only want to focus on trying out melodies for lets say the second brake, 4 minutes into the song? How would you solve that?

[Dcramer]

I didn’t realize this was a thing with the Bloob, my workflow always has all my needed tracks armed and recording off the start, and then I’m simply muting and unmuting tracks in the mixer. Consequently it’s a piece of cake to copy the files into my DAW while maintains sync between tracks.

[horisonten]

Is there a specific wishlist topic for this function? I can not seem to find it.

[midipoet]

I just started looking into this today and saw your revived thread. I don't blame them for not supporting messing with the XML files. That being said, it looks to me like the time code is based on midi beats, and it comes out to 960 per beat. (Midi time codes are 24 pulses per beat, and 960 is 40 x 24, if that is significant). It also makes sense that it is based on beats because the punch-in and punch-out values on the Edit screen are always full four-beat measures.

Note that if the punch-in value is 27:1, for example, then the timestamp is for 26 full four-beat measures: 26 measures x 4 beats each = 104 beats; 104 beats x 960 = 99840, which matches my time code. The same formula works for my other punch in locations, too. Working the other way, dividing the time code by 960 gives you the beats: 99840 / 960 = 104 beats. 104 beats / 4 beats per measure = 26 measures.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

[aljenimago]

@ Seteef: "I guess if you start overdubbing and comping stuff it would get messy."

I guess you are right. But "overdubbing and comping stuff" is exactly what multitrack recorders like this are usually built for. This was true for Tascam Porta cassette recorders 40 years ago, this is stilly true today for all DAW, even on smartphones, and especially for all dedicated multitrack recorders, of course. For all? Well, there is an exception, they call it "1010 bluebox"…

Seriously: you can punch-in record with the bluebox, you can record multiple/alternative takes, etc. These features are fine; they are neatly implemented, too. But they only make sense if there is a reasonable way to sync them in the postproduction. Otherwise, nothing to write home about.

[idylmind]

In fact if you want to see the power of the Bluebox, check out this video (https://youtu.be/zhuiUU0-Vng). I used it for Stem playback as well as mixing and recording the live elements of the performance. I was able to easily drop those recordings into Pro Tools for a proper mix to sync back with the video. The Bluebox is powerful, there's nothing else quite like it right now.

[idylmind]

Yes it absolutely syncs easily when you record from the same location.

[Seteef]

I'm curious about this too. Contemplating the Bluebox as well, and would want to be able to easily export stems. I'm assuming if I start recording all the tracks at the same time it would export them as aligned stems. I guess if you start overdubbing and comping stuff it would get messy.

[idylmind]

Did you start recording at different times for all of your inputs while jamming?

[ibisum]

I've just been bitten by this - had some pretty epic jams, had the Bluebox set up to record stems .. go to import them into a DAW for later fun, and .. well, yeah, no timing information doesn't exactly make these files useful. It was a JAM, how am I supposed to know what time everyones parts sat in the session?

So .. I inspect the asset.xml file .. and well, there are no start/end time parameters in mine. Everything just says 0. What gives? Do I have the unenviable situation of now explaining to my fellow jam members that they have to tell me what they played and when, before we can listen to things? Hmmm...

If there could be *some* feedback on this thread from 1010music about the asset.xml/project.xml contents, maybe some of us could whip up some importers for common DAW's so that this is a no-brainer for folks, going forward .. (I have dibs on REAPER!)

[sirshannon]

Thank you for your hint. It's getting nerdy, err interesting

I have tried your solution. Math has never been mine, though, so I am afraid to be just as wise as before. :-0 The 2nd "track" is starting at 4.1, which are exactly 12 second in this case. After doing the math, the result was not 42, but 960. Makes (1 Beat == 240 n), while n=blueboxsecretunit. Granted the recording was made at 60 bpm 4/4, which is not always the case.


As I said, mathematics was never my forte, so I am a little bit stuck from this point on. I tried to transfer this template to other tracks – with no success. If you have any further hints or a vital clue about what I'm doing wrong, you're very welcome – thank you i.a.!

I don't understand your math here.

You have 3840 as the start time and that is 12 beats or 12 seconds [because 60 bpm]. 3840 / 12 is 320, not 960.

You said "I tried to transfer this template to other tracks – with no success." but I'm not sure exactly what you mean. If you mean the math problem, you should show those other tracks so we can see what you're talking about. Maybe you did the same math problem on other tracks but did it correctly and therefor it didn't match the incorrect math you show above?

You can't really know if you solved this with a single attempt. In your example above, you have at least 4 ways to check the math. 0 for the start time of the "Bluebox 1" track (which of course matches because 0 = 0). 3840 start time for 12 seconds. 30056 end time that you could test against the length of "Bluebox 1". 17688 end time that you could text against the length of "Bluebox 2". Or you could post the lengths of those tracks and we could do the math here.

And like was suggested above, you can do the same thing with a different tempo track. I only suggested using 60 bpm because you wouldn't need to measure in seconds but if you're putting them into your daw, you can get the times and lengths in seconds and do the same math regardless of tempo.

[kattefjaes]

It would be easier if the Bluebox had an export function that would export all tracks with the necessary blank sections so that all tracks could be dropped straight into a Daw at 0 & line up.

Yep, a proper "export stems" feature like many DAWs and sequencer boxes have- it feels like a bare minimum to be usable. Hit a button to export stems, get a pile of WAVs all the same length, that you can drop onto tracks in Protools or whatever to continue working with them. Heck, even Polyend Tracker manages that, after a fashion.

I came here to check for obvious flaws or facepalms in the Bluebox prior to ordering one. I guess this thread has answered the question for now, the firmware is far from ready for prime time. Thank you lovely forum people!

Back to lugging a laptop with Ableton and an RME interface, I guess

[datagreed]

Oh man, is that how punch-in recording works in the new firmware? I though it would be ore like OP-1.